Above Average

Average

Below Average

Poor

^That's how John Byrne envisioned the process back in the day as well, though they didn't get around to exploring Wolverine's origins during his tenure. In his version, Wolverine's original bones weren't affected by his healing factor, and had to be replaced one by one after he broke every bone in his body.

X-Men: The Adamantium Collection Blu-ray (6 movie set, includes open slot for DOFP)

James Mangold talks Unrated edition.

Wolverine fans who have longed to see the Marvel mutant on the big screen in his blood-spattered berserker glory may get the chance when James Mangold’s film arrives on Blu-ray and DVD.

“I’m very happy with the cut, and the studio was very generous in terms of letting me finish the movie as I wanted,” the director tells DigitalSpy, “but I do think we will have a slightly more violent version … let’s say an unrated, a bloodier version. There’s about 10 or 12 minutes of scenes that I’d love people to see, that we’ll produce some kind of longer version of the movie at some point on Blu-ray or whatever. There’s another great scene with Hiro Sanada and a much more elaborate battle with ninjas from the third act that is a pretty huge battle sequence that you’ll see.”

This collection includes all six X-Men films on Blu-ray (X-Men (2000), X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011), The Wolverine (2013)), in exclusive “claw” packaging, plus a bonus disc. There is also an open slot for X-Men: Days of Future Past to complete your X-Men collection.

I rate The Wolverine as average - individually I thought many of the pieces were very good, but as a whole the experience was not as satisfying as other recent comic book movies. Some quick comments:

* One of the strengths of the movie were the two Japanese actresses portraying Yukio and Mariko. Pacific Rim desperately needed an actress of their caliber portraying Mako.

* Most reviews pan Viper, but I admit I thoroughly enjoyed her performance, detrimental to the cause of positive female portrayals in movies notwithstanding. Along with Logan she is the only non-Japanese character we see after Canada, and boy does she get the blood rolling when she's strutting around Tokyo in those high heels! Yes, she was channeling B&R Poison Ivy by the end, but overall a satisfying henchwoman (not a main villain), comparing favorably to Faora in MoS.

* Continuing on commenting on the actresses, I loved seeing Famke Janssen again, but I think she made one too many dream appearances, which overstressed the point of Logan's feelings of loss. Better to have included a flashback from X3 of Logan stabbing her. Though it's probably not canon to do so, it might have been interesting if Dark Phoenix were actually really communicating with Logan from beyond the grave, beckoning Logan to join her, instead of being a figment of his imagination.

* Still not sure why Yashida gave everything to his granddaughter. Given the importance of the interclan dynamics that drove the plot, a compelling reason was needed, but I can't recall one being given. Off the top of my head, since Yashida is something of a mutant-phile, perhaps make Mariko a mutant (with very toned downed powers), and therefore he likes her over his non-mutant son.

* Logan's effective invincibility due to his healing prowess IMO made the Wolverine a less-interesting and even troubling character; there were hints of this in X3, but it's really apparent here when he's exclusively fighting non-mutants. In particular, even though the fight with Mariko's father was great, I felt really uncomfortable when Logan killed him; there was no way he could beat him, so why kill him, especially when he was no longer the one threatening Mariko? Conversely, the way the ninjas neutralized him despite his renewed powers was very clever.

* Yashida's return as the Silver Samurai is final proof that movies should never have the main villain pretend to be dead, then reappear. It didn't work in Prometheus, and it didn't work here.

* One of the strengths of the movie were the two Japanese actresses portraying Yukio and Mariko. Pacific Rim desperately needed an actress of their caliber portraying Mako.

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I rate Yukio's actress lower in the strengths category due to her weak enunciation in parts of the first act of the film. I had no idea what she was saying at a few points, which irritated the hell out of me.

* Still not sure why Yashida gave everything to his granddaughter. Given the importance of the interclan dynamics that drove the plot, a compelling reason was needed, but I can't recall one being given. Off the top of my head, since Yashida is something of a mutant-phile, perhaps make Mariko a mutant (with very toned downed powers), and therefore he likes her over his non-mutant son.

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1) Japan is still a very patriarchal society in many ways, so he probably expected her to be very demure and go along with whatever he says. 2) He treated her better than her dad, so he figured she'd be willing to do whatever he wanted if he played on their familiar bonds. 3) Yashida figured Shingen's ambitions would ruin the company and would probably get in the way of his goals at some point, while Mariko had no ambition and didn't want the job, so she'd gladly let Yashida handle the planning stuff and just be a figurehead.

* Logan's effective invincibility due to his healing prowess IMO made the Wolverine a less-interesting and even troubling character; there were hints of this in X3, but it's really apparent here when he's exclusively fighting non-mutants. In particular, even though the fight with Mariko's father was great, I felt really uncomfortable when Logan killed him; there was no way he could beat him, so why kill him, especially when he was no longer the one threatening Mariko?

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Logan killed Shingen because the guy was still a threat to Mariko. Sure, he wasn't the immediate threat, but Shingen had literally nothing to lose and everything to gain after Yashida's will screwed him over. Letting him live at that point, when he's lost everything and Mariko's pretty much guaranteed to get the company, just means he'll be back for revenge. He already doesn't give a shit about his daughter's life, but getting beaten by mutants twice and left to stew in his defeat just makes him more motivated to ruin his father's plan/legacy by killing Mariko.

* Yashida's return as the Silver Samurai is final proof that movies should never have the main villain pretend to be dead, then reappear. It didn't work in Prometheus, and it didn't work here.

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Yeah, action movies need to stop doing twists because they suck at them.

I really enjoyed the movie, but I was dismayed at the number of continuity problems I saw. I don't usually notice such things, so if I do it has to be pretty bad. It doesn't affect my rating of The Wolverine; I just find it surprising.

Wouldn't Logan's Adamantium skeleton kill him without his healing abilities?

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I don't think he ever lost it. If so, one of the half dozen or so bullets he took would have killed him first. I was under the impression he still had his healing factor, but it was slowed down from working overtime on his skeleton and heart.

Anyways, I rated it Above Average

Only things I really didn't like were the extremely convoluted story around Mariko being hunted and a few poor fx shots. Otherwise, the movie was a lot of fun and exactly what I wanted from a Wolverine flick.